2-6 hours pass by every time as Ashley Qiao, a Sophomore at Urbana Highschool, draws art digitally. Serapsyrup is Ashley’s artist name that she uses online, and it’s what she goes by when she gets commissioned for her art. Ashley is unsure on how she got into the art scene originally but she’s happy that she did. The reason that got her into art that seems to make sense to her is that when she was younger she loved to read webtoons and use a creative writing platform called Storybird. Ashley says that beyond Storybird it was, “seeing other artists and discovering new things to try out that’s kept me going.” 

Being able to be so involved in art it would be impossible to not idolize  a couple artists. Ashley admires many, “I idolize a lot of artists, but a few of them on instagram that I idolize are WLOP, samdoesart, rossdraws, fatalbug896, yuumeiart, and practically my entire following list on my art account,” the account in question is @Serapsyrup on instagram. Ashley now in 2021 believes that she is just intermediate and advanced in the art scene, she makes plenty of honest mistakes here and there but that’s what it means to grow as an artist. Despite all of that Ashley is confident that she has a good concept of how to stylize photos, anatomy, facial structure, and realism. Since Ashley is most confident in that concept of art she generally sticks to certain art styles, “I’d definitely stick to this one that i have right now (semi realism/anime) or try to do something like fatalbug896’s art. There’s something really impressive about their way of painting that I want to study.”

The most Ashley sees out of her art hobby would be her majoring in design at parsons school of design, but for now it’s only a hobby and she doubts she’ll make a career out of it, but despite it just being a hobby Ashley enjoys working  and practicing hard to improve her skill. Ashley’s way of practicing and maintaining motivation and passion for art consist of, “the most effective way to practice is to become obsessed with the skill. You need some form of motivation, whether that be the people around you or wanting to become like the artists you idolize. Personally, it’s helped me a lot to always have a reason to draw, and currently, it’s the art class I’m taking.” 

Ashley’s hard working mindset and her raw talent pave and sculpt the way towards a bright and creative future.